Your Fitness Age Could Be the Key to Living Longer

October 21, 2014

A recent New York Times article caught our eye. It’s about how one’s fitness age relates to how long you’ll live. While we all assumed being more fit would lead to a longer life, a new study from Norway proves it.

Scientists looked at more than 55,000 Norwegians who had participated in a survey in the 1980s, which included determining their “fitness age” or VO2max (a measurement that indicates your current cardiovascular endurance). Then, the scientists looked at death records.

According to the article:

It turned out that people whose calculated VO2max was 85 percent or more below the average for their age — meaning that their fitness age was significantly above their chronological years — had an 82 percent higher risk of dying prematurely than those whose fitness age was the same as or more youthful than their actual age. According to the study’s authors, the results suggest that fitness age may predict a person’s risk of early death better than some traditional risk factors like being overweight, having high cholesterol levels or blood pressure, and smoking.

You can check on your own fitness age online. The good news, it’s never too late to be healthier. What’s your fitness age?